A man carried his mother down ten flights of stairs at a Philadelphia senior living facility after a fire broke out in the middle of the night, forcing residents to evacuate.
WPVI reported that firefighters responded to a call at the Brith Sholom House in the Wynnefield Heights neighborhood around 1:40 a.m. on Saturday.
The fire broke out on the building’s fourth floor, and smoke spread to the other floors.
Shawn Smith, who is his mother’s caregiver, told WPVI that they did not smell the smoke at first.
“And then the hallways on the 10th floor started filling up with smoke. So I grabbed my mother and I threw her over my shoulder and I had to carry her down 10 flights of steps,” Smith said.
Smith, who was wearing a Philadelphia Eagles jersey and was barefoot at the time, said he sprung into action as quickly as he could.
“It was a scary situation, but I got my mother out. That was all I was concerned about,” Smith said.
It took 20 minutes for crews to get the fire under control. One person was treated for health conditions at the scene.
The cause of the fire is under investigation.
Smith is not the first Philadelphia native who sprang into action to help his mother during a fire recently. Another Philadelphia man scaled a building back in July 2019 to make sure his mother was okay after a fire broke out in the building.